THE PIKE, JACK, OR LUCE. 145 



ordinary for the time of year, the spawning is retarded (as in 1877 season, 

 I remember) till June. This, however, is singular, and of rare occurrence, 

 the usual period being in warm May days. The smaller fish spawn first, 

 and the larger in regular gradation. It is very amusing to observe the 

 " loves of the fishes," as an old Italian author words it. I have seen 

 the male fish gently rub against the side of his mate un*til the latter 

 has insensibly been pushed up on dry land and secured. Nor would the 

 male fish leave the spot until I again restored his fiancee to the element 

 from which his pikeship had so ungallantly pushed her. The spawning 

 is the only season when the pike seems to exhibit any departure from the 

 unrelenting ferocity of its character, excepting when, out of gratitude, 

 as has been asserted, it spares the tench. (See chapter on "Tench.") 

 Couch quotes Lund to the effect that a fish of 351b. contained 272,160 

 grains of spawn. 



Apropos of the spawning of pike, the writer in a German paper of 

 natural history gives his expf rience of lake pike. He has observed that 

 four or five weeks before spawning commences the jack seek the neighbour- 

 hood of the shore ia groups, and almost invariably each of these consists of 

 one female accompanied by one or more male fish, and so continues, unless 

 disturbed, till the breeding season is over. As a rule a female of small 

 size is accompanied by one male only ; a medium sized mother-fish has two 

 or three males, and a full-sized one as many as four or five. The larger the 

 mother-fish the smaller, as a rule, are her attendant squires, the weight of 

 the former being generally about equal to that of all the males put together. 

 If the males of a group be caught shortly before spawning time, the bereaved 

 female does not mate again that season ; in due time of course she deposits 

 her roe, but it remains unfertilised, and so perishes. By removal of some 

 of the dorsal scales from all the members of a group taken in a net, so as 

 to render their identification easy, it was found that on replacing them in 

 the water at considerable distances from each other, they invariably reunited 

 in a very short space of time. Under no circumstances was the spawn of 

 a female bereaved of her attendant males, impregnated by the milt of others 

 in the same water, however numerous the latter might be. 



The blood of the pike under the microscope exhibits in a remarkable 

 degree that corpuscular movement spoken of by Carpenter ("Microscope," 

 page 712), and the variations in form of the molecules are exceedingly 

 interesting. The best method is to secure a very young pike, and whilst 

 keeping the body in cool water, to extend the tail over the slide. The 

 blood corpuscles are oval, and are estimated in size in Mr. Gulliver's 

 edition of Hewson's works at about l-2000th of an inch long and l-3555th 

 of an inch broad. 



The digestion of the pike is extraordinary. Not only will it get rid of 



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